a questing spirit

There's a throw pillow missing from the basement couch, the one embroidered with three robin eggs arranged neatly in a nest. It's stuffed inside a backpack, the one that is not being used for school this year. Also inside are several cans of green beans from the pantry, at least a day's ration, in addition to a flashlight, a small lined notepad and walkie-talkies. There's a boxy brown fall jacket nearby, with pockets full of plastic knives from the play kitchen, an old mint tin of "sardines" and nerf dart ammunition. There are sketches of weapons and maps of foreign fields strewn about and children camouflaged around each corner. The stack of Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales keeps growing, each one reread and annotated, and bedside rests a book about Waverly Wilson and barrage balloons. In his closet hang's great Uncle John's military uniforms, and in his mind, a million historical reenactments and gallant captures and heroic escapes.